How IT can enable digital transformation at your organization: 5 tips

Digital transformation is big business. In fact, some 56% of CEOs surveyed by research firm Gartner said that digital transformation had improved their profits.

The breakdown of digital transformation is much more nuanced, however. A 2016 study commissioned by Dell Technologies found that 32% of business leaders were embracing the trend because they want to predict new opportunities. An additional 31% want to enable always-on, real-time operations, while another 31% want to demonstrate transparency and trust.

The potential value is there, but actually enabling digital transformation can be difficult. At the 2017 VMworld conference in Las Vegas, VMware’s Kevin Lees explained IT’s role in digital transformation, and how they can overcome some common hurdles.

First off, Lees said, it’s important to understand that digital transformation is forcing a tighter alignment between business and IT. As such, it is important that each party understand and adopt the goals of the other.

According to Lees, VMware customers were polled on their primary desired business outcomes for digital transformation. The top three outcomes were increased business agility and innovation, enhanced mobile experience for customers and employees, and the ability to better protect their brand and customer trust, Lees said.

It’s often said that people, processes, and technology enable digital transformation, but the technology is the easy part, Lees said. After a firm has identified its strategic objectives, and built an architecture that supports those objectives, there is still more work to be done. Here are five tips Lees suggested for empowering IT to assist in your digital transformation effort.

1. Shift IT culture

Most of IT is still IT-centric and project-oriented in its culture, Lees said, and this needs to change. IT culture should shift to something that is focused on the customer outcome and is service-oriented. This will require more collaboration and information sharing, Lees said. For example, IT shouldn’t be able to decide what end users want without talking to those users first.

2. Break down silos

Breaking down siloes can improve the communication flow and enable IT and the business to share ideas and collaborate on goals. Instead, business and IT should work to…